


At the Precipice

by DragonQueenTessa



Category: Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: Alternate Ending, Doomed Relationship, F/M, Five Nights at Freddy’s: The Fourth Closet, Gen, Hopeful Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:27:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26664433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonQueenTessa/pseuds/DragonQueenTessa
Summary: Just hours ago, she had been so close to destroying everything she thought she envied. Now, Elizabeth didn't know how to feel or what to think. How could she aspire to anything, being what she was?(A small rewrite of the ending of Five Nights at Freddy's: the Fourth Closet. Spoilers for a lot of TFC plotpoints.)((I'm uploading this on mobile so I can't get the most accurate tagging in, so additional note: implied eventual mutual pining between two gals))
Relationships: Charlotte "Charlie" Emily & Jessica, Charlotte "Charlie" Emily & John, Charlotte "Charlie" Emily/John (Five Nights at Freddy's), Elizabeth Afton & Charlotte "Charlie" Emily
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	At the Precipice

The clouded sky outside was cold, though she could not truly feel it. Her systems could only approximate how a human would feel, and instruct her to react accordingly. Thus, sat in her short black skirt and heeled boots, Elizabeth feigned shivering.

The conversation in the roadside diner went about as well as it could have. Nobody was accused of being crazy, no fight was threatened, and only four out of five people present had cried.

Charlie, John, Jessica, Marla. Each had broken down into tears at least once. Elizabeth had teetered on the brink, but briefly dropping her disguise in her corner seat of the high booth had let her hide that fact. Now that she was alone, she had let the fake tears come. Fake, as fake as the rest of her. Nothing but an ugly sham.

 _'Perfect things don't break down'_ she had tried telling herself at first, but then again, she had never come close to perfect. She had only been chasing the idea of a perfect creation. She had maimed and killed, deceived and betrayed. She had tried so hard to make her father proud, but she couldn't even remember him giving something as little as a smile for her.

Gravel crunched somewhere behind her, but she didn't look to regard the intruder. A lady just slightly shorter than her sat down on the same curbside, her combat boots full of the small stones that had announced her presence.

"Hey," The girl said, as if nothing was wrong. Elizabeth didn't look up at her rounder face and softer eyes.

"You," Elizabeth replied, but there was no heat in the word, anymore. Just an air of futility as she hiccuped through a new bout of tears.

She felt the soft weight of Charlie's hand on her shoulder, and while she wanted to shun it, she could not bring herself to shy away from the touch. Charlie dipped her head slightly, peering up at Elizabeth, her own gaze remaining fixed pointedly on a randomly-selected pebble on the ground.

"So, what are you going to do?" Charlie tried, repeating the same question she'd asked Elizabeth in the diner. Elizabeth shook her head lifelessly, without an answer still "What _am_ I to do?" She lamented. "When I haven't a clue who _I_ even am?"

"But you know that," Charlie countered. "You told me first, and then you told the others. You're _Elizabeth._ And believe me, I won't judge if you don't want to hold on to that surname."

Elizabeth ground her fake teeth. "But am I _me, Elizabeth_ \- or the Elizabeth that _someone else wanted me to be?_ Where do I start, and where does the lie end?"

Charlie leaned back minutely, tilting her face up towards the starless sky. "That'll be a question I'll be stumbling over too, just you wait."

"Hasn't quite sunk in yet?" Liz guessed. Charlie just nodded. "Let's assume it's the former-" The girl went on to suggest. "You're _you, Elizabeth_ \- your own person, and you've just been set loose, free to take whatever path you please. What's the first thing you'll do?"

Elizabeth huffed, a little petulant. "This question again? You sound like a broken record."

Charlie made a small noise of amusement. "Forgive me, must be a glitch..."

At the poor attempt at a joke, the two sucked in a breath almost simultaneously. They didn't need to breathe, but it was a programmed response made to have the illusion be more convincing to human perception. "Your friends took it well, you know," Liz muttered. "The whole _'Charlie has been dead for years and I've been a robot all this time'_ thing."

Charlie glared lightly at her, but there was no real anger there, and she didn't hold that expression for long. "Why aren't you mad?" Elizabeth questioned in its' wake. "You have every right to try and tear me apart right now, I just can't give you the assurance that you'll win."

"Well, that's one of the things that's holding me back," The younger figure replied, only partly jesting. "Plus, between the two of us, it's you who holds the brunt of the anger."

Silence fell between them, and with a slow sigh, Charlie let her hand drop from her once-döppleganger's shoulder and laid herself down on the pavement, staring up at the featureless abyss. "I don't know if we're all friends anymore -" She said with a sniffle. "-Jessica said she's not letting me go, and Marla _is_ sort of the group's mother-hen. But... I don't know how Carlton and Clay will take it the next time we get hospital visitation, and John... I can tell he's crushed."

Elizabeth's eyes focused on something new, the car taillights flying by and disappearing over a hill just ahead. Maybe, if she watched them long enough, she could pretend to be flying away with them, far from here. "What are you going to do?" She sarcastically jabbed back at Charlie. The fellow fake next to her didn't budge.

"I don't really know where I'll go from here," Charlie openly admitted. "There will be a lot to work through, and... now I may not have everyone I held dear along for that new journey. But it has to be made; I may not have been created by a sound mind, but father's intentions were pure-"

"Tch, _your's_ were," Elizabeth spat.

" _-My_ father's intentions were pure," Charlie corrected. "And I want to imagine that he wanted me to live on not just for his sake, but for mine. At the start, he really believed he was doing the right thing. It will be messy; now that I know of my real nature, there will be new bumps in the road, but I'm willing to face that challenge."

Elizabeth stilled, and more tears brimmed on her fake eyelashes. "How can you be so strong, knowing your entire existence is a _farce_?"

When Charlie sat back up to hug her, Elizabeth didn't think about pulling away. Instead, she repositioned one arm and - ignoring Charlie's paranoid start - hugged the smaller girl back.

"I don't feel particularly strong," Charlie confessed. "-right now I'm just... Trying to roll with the punches. I won't dig my heels in too deep because I know the ground is unsteady. I may need to make a lot of changes in short order, and I want to be ready for a new plan of action."

"Smart girl," Elizabeth sobbed softly. "You're going to make it, I can already tell."

"But so are you," Charlie insists, softly, more than a little uncertain. "If you'll let me... I'll help?"

She wanted to shake her head, to turn Charlie away and leave this place to find somewhere to waste away in peace, but found that she could not.

 _"Girls?"_ A third voice interjected from a little way behind them. Turning to look, Elizabeth saw it was Jessica jogging up to the two of them. She crouched - predictably - by Charlie's side. "Hey! Marla and I came up with an idea; what if we spent the coming week checking out some local places. We'll do shopping, see a movie, all that fun stuff."

Elizabeth and Charlie both regarded her with some skepticism, and the blonde brushed through her hair nervously at the almost withering stares. "Okay, it sounds a little dumb, but maybe spending some time together as friends do... you know, maybe it'll help mend some of the trust issues... If we're all going to have to change, why not get it over with and jump in together?"

"I don't particularly want to change too much about myself," Charlie made sure to voice. "And I don't want to alienate John-"

Jessica met her eyes with a look that betrayed pity. Clearly she, just like Charlie, had a fear that John wasn't sticking around. Charlie sniffed and slipped out of Elizabeth's one-armed hug, crying out and throwing herself into Jessica's safer embrace instead. Elizabeth watched them for a moment, conflicting feelings roiling in her artificial mind.

On one hand, she didn't want to intrude any more on Charlie's not-real life than she already had. On the other... How much worse could she really make things? She _desperately_ wanted to change. To turn over a new leaf, find something to live a realer-feeling life for.

"I want to come with you," She murmured under her breath. Charlie's face turned against Jessica's neck, just enough for her to regard Elizabeth with one eye. Both girls were looking at her, Jessica wearing a gentle but careful smile on her face.

"I'll let Marla know," Jessica replied, easing a still-teary Charlie out of the tight hug. "You two chat. I'll tell the others you need some space."

She left almost as swiftly as she had come to join them, guiding the diner's heavy door to close quietly behind her. Elizabeth saw Charlie's eyes follow the sillhouette of John behind the frosted glass. Her expression now was one ruled by pain and loss. An era was coming to a sudden close, and nobody in her group was ready for it.

Charlie heaved another deep sigh, the noise heavy with more unshed tears. Elizabeth lowered her gaze back to the ground, where she felt most secure leaving it. She didn't want to open herself up to more pain. Where she once believed it brought her some petty joy to break Charlie's spirit, she now knew it was quite the opposite. While it was a stretch to say there was a kinship between them, Elizabeth did feel herself empathizing with the littler lady by her side.

Charlie had had a _life_ , ten years worth of something that had to have been much more meaningful than what little time Elizabeth felt she had been given thusfar. The vast majority of _her_ life she had spent unfinished and helpless, hidden away like something to be ashamed of, and stewing in her ever-deepening fury.

Neither of them had wanted things to be like this, but the terrible machine driving their fates had been set in motion. At least if Elizabeth failed to cope with its' relentless pace sooner rather than later, she would fade away to nothing, leaving no untied ends.

But in her desperation for new sources of security, she would trade in her free-floating predicament for the chance to make a friend. Coaxing her eyes to gently shift back towards Charlie, Elizabeth shuddered with uncertainty. She didn't know Charlie's friends and she had in fact been _lying to them_ for months now, and she knew her cruel words had ruined Charlie, so by all means she had no right to ask for anyone's forgiveness.

Maybe it was time to go after all. Dying alone somewhere quiet sounded like the better option. But when Elizabeth made her choice and began getting to her feet, she found something wouldn't let her leave.

Looking down, she realized that Charlie's hand was clasping hers, her own long and graceful fingers held quite tightly by the girl's sure grip. "Where are you going?" Charlie asked, and Elizabeth considered just pulling free and leaving without another word. "You said you wanted to come with me and the other girls?"

Elizabeth allowed herself to sink back down, but didn't speak. "Cold feet?" Charlie guessed.

"A little." Liz finally admitted. "What I don't understand most of all is why you are open to this. I came so close to killing you, I coldly _murdered someone you held dear._ How can you just... Sit here, as if any of this is right?"

Charlie seemed to shiver briefly, although the breeze outside had not worsened any. No, the source of her shudder was revulsion. To her credit, she seemed to steel herself for a response. "Well, let's see it from another angle... You were ordered by Afton to retrieve me, right? And now that we know he's gone for good, evil can't guide you anymore. You're _you_ , Elizabeth, not his deadly construct parading around with another's name. None of what that machine did was the real you, because the real you just started out."

Elizabeth shook her head with conviction. "No, we're _not_ taking that path - I was listening to him, yes, but I had a lot more agency than that perspective posits. I could have, you know, _ran away from it all?_ "

She let her gaze drift to Charlie, challenging the girl to show she was listening to every word. The intense look that Charlie's eyes took on told her that she had the young lady's attention. "-Plus," Liz continued. "looking at it that way discredits everything _you_ have ever done. The good, wonderful memories you made with people you cared for - just because you only now found out that things weren't what they seemed. Don't make excuses for me, I knew I was doing things that were morally wrong."

Charlie seemed stumped by that, her mouth a little ajar as she seemed to look for words. Finally giving up after a few tries, she offered only a weak smile instead. Elizabeth returned it, glad to have had the opportunity to be the one to talk some sense into her saner counterpart. After the suffering she had induced, she felt she owed Charlie that.

Maybe it was okay to let her guard down, and just take things as they came for a while. Silently, Elizabeth allowed her body to relax, and Charlie didn't need much time to see and take the invitation to share in a proper hug.

This was all going as well as it could reasonably go.

They decided, seemingly at the same moment, to pick themselves up off the curb and return to the diner. Straightening her own clothes, Elizabeth was a little amused to notice that Charlie did no such thing herself. Charlie didn't care much for overt neatness and other such little details, and that was part of why John had caught on to Elizabeth's deception early. That, and watching Charlie 'die' before his very eyes, of course.

Speaking of the man, he was making his exit from the diner just as they approached it. He froze in place as he saw the both of them, looking a little caught and apprehensive. Elizabeth stayed where she was, but Charlie approached him, her hair haloed by the light eminating from the diner as she got nearer to it.

"...Hey." John whispered, as if trying not to spook a nervous animal. It sounded so much less casual than Charlie had sounded when she came to sit with Elizabeth.

"Going home for the night?" Charlie replied softly, still playing this game of pretend despite herself. He gave a small shrug, and finally neither party could stop themselves any longer. In unison, they closed the distance between them, and hugged one another, _tightly._

Elizabeth briefly wished she still had the innocence of Afton's daughter, the freedom to think anything could always be patched up if it fell apart. These two had loved, and now, ever though Charlie was still the same 'person' deep down, there was an unfillable chasm where their bond had once bridged whatever innocuous gaps there were.

Elizabeth heard their sniffles, the _pain_ in their souls, and turned away. Jessica had included her in their little 'girls' night out' plan, but that didn't mean she had the right to bear witness to _this_. This was Charlie's life and her life only, shattering apart moment by agonizing moment.

"I still love you," John choked out, his voice cracking. Charlie replied in kind with an affirmation that she, too, loved him.

 _How cruel of me_ , Elizabeth thought to herself, but her judgement snagged somewhere, making her snap out of the self-blame. _John figured things out before I had to spell it out for Charlie, and it's not like _I_ am the root of this whole mess._ She privately realized. _I was just a memory of a little girl, one who got caught up in Henry's stupid self-deception and then became a pawn in William's nasty scheme. They would have known even if I _had_ ran away, because Charlie would still have been right there for them to find._

Busy with herself, Elizabeth didn't notice that the duo's attention had shifted to her until she felt the now familiar press of Charlie's hand on her shoulder.

"Elizabeth?" She inquired. "John is staying to chat with the group a while longer, do you want to come sit with us too?"

Elizabeth gave the girl the best smile she could manage.

\---

Despite everything, even knowing a break-up was basically inevitable, John and Charlie tried to settle back into the 'young couple' mindset. John even joined Jessica and the others every time they took Elizabeth along, although there was little to do for him but sit around while the ladies discussed clothes.

Charlie was a little out of her depth on that front too, but she was more like Elizabeth, and so she actually wound up being drawn back into the chattering quite frequently. A few times, John joined in when the topic shifted to hobbies and interests. Elizabeth, determined to find what _she_ liked, wanted to have as wide of a pool of ideas to draw from as possible. She didn't just want to change how she dressed and carried herself, but wished to pick up some things to spend her newfound private time on. Maybe she would later try job-hunting in a specific field if she found a subject that particularly intrigued her.

All things considered, it was fun being out socializing together.

They had started the first day in a little cafe, where they had a drink and talked about things they enjoyed doing. Elizabeth had soon expressed a possible interest in traveling to somewhere far beyond Hurricane, further than any of them had gone. The idea had come from the cafe's small menu, which was decorated at the edges with photographs of famous places in France.

By the time they had gone through two clothing stores and entered into the third, Elizabeth had already decided she was more drawn to dresses, contrasting Charlie's favouring of jeans and other less classically feminine wear.

"This'll be perfect for your measurements Liz!" Jessica chipperly called from somewhere in the store, and the rest of the group looked to see a hand above the clothing racks a few isles away, triumphantly raising what looked to be a slim, white-blue dress.

\---

By day three of their get-togethers, Elizabeth had taken it upon herself to modify her own appearance before she would join the group in the morning. Tampering with her disguise technology permitted her to change her 'human' appearance. Where she once had merely looked like a slightly more mature Charlie, she now sported reddish golden hair, which hung in softly curled bunches down past her shoulders. Her eyes had taken on a lively green colour, shining with a sharp glint of intelligence, and her shoulders appeared more slight than the shoulders of her Charlie disguise had looked. Now, she looked a little more like a perfectly beautiful human version of the split-faced freak she was beneath the veil, and she was alright with that truth. She felt like _Elizabeth_ at last.

She even modulated her voice so that it took on a hint of a different accent. She had no desire to draw any more similarities between herself and Afton than what her vision required her to, but this had definitely been one of those little things. This was all _her_ , he could not order her to be a certain way anymore.

When she met the group of four in her favourite red dress that morning, her new look had astounded them. "What inspired the switch-up?" Charlie had asked, and Elizabeth had almost flippantly responded to her that _one_ of them had to change. They could all share a bit of a chuckle over it now, a few nights' sleep had helped settle some of the nerves and unfortunate truths.

She was allowed to join them for their next visit to Carlton, and the young man had gaped shamelessly. Something about her eyes had brought on some disbelieving rant, which had the rest of the group almost in tears with how personally attacked Carlton seemed to be.

"There is _no_ way this 'Elizabeth' could have been his!" Carlton balked. "Even if it's an attempt to approach how she _could_ have looked at this age - I saw him! He was an ugly bastard no matter what form he took! Your estimates have to be wrong!"

Elizabeth, although privately mourning the fact that some of her features did indeed ellicit comparisons between her and the late Afton, was mostly just amused by the young man's ranting. Carlton _had_ been the one unfortunate enough to have had _two_ nearly-deadly solo encounters with her 'father'.

"He couldn't have produced... This!" Carlton insisted again to his friends, making a lot of lively arm-waving motions towards Elizabeth in an attempt to convince them.

Eventually, his activity prompted a nurse to shoo them all away, but Elizabeth promised him she'd check in with him again, winking for the added effect just before she was out of his line of sight. She had no intentions to actually try anything with Carlton - the one attempt at seduction she had made when she was masquerading as 'Charlie' had been with the intent to disarm him - but she found the idea of messing with his head for a little fun... appealing.

After that _encounter_ they had diverted right to the nearest commercial district, taking the most capable car out to a town that offered better shopping options than Hurricane. Jessica had an entire route planned out.

With enough trying on of clothes, Jessica had also quickly come to the conclusion that both warm and cool colours seemed to suit Elizabeth well, so long as they were bright or pastel. Blues and purples worked well with her bright eyes, and reds and oranges looked lovely with her hair colour. White was in stark contrast against her bright features, and Jessica quickly found she envied Liz' wode array of options.

"So, summer goddess or winter queen, you've got the best of both worlds!" Jessica had thrilled, and Elizabeth couldn't help herself with her reply of "Ah, the two deadliest seasons, only fitting."

Elizabeth had to say, Jessica's joy really _was_ infectious. Marla had tried to warn her about that, but it had taken root all too fast. Now, as Elizabeth twirled in an airy yellow sundress that she knew she _had_ to have for the warmer months, she celebrated to herself that she had found something that brought her that much joy to be around.

Outwardly, she continued to project that happiness, but inside she was soon struck with a sudden fear. She was immediately attached to Jessica, so much so that she feared it might _hurt_ \- was this what was going through Charlie's mind when she spent time with John now? Knowing that you wanted to be near to someone, while being aware that time would change them, and that you would eventually, inevitably, be left behind.

As the group collected their purchases to go to the check out, Elizabeth tried to dodge Jessica's little looks. But she found that their eyes kept on making contact, which they would doubtlessly both seek to blame on chance for however long they could dance around one another.

Oh, what was she getting herself into?


End file.
